Rome mayor nixes 2024 Olympic bid: ‘This city is unlivable’

We are still paying debts for the 1960 Olympics, she said. “They will bring only debt”, Raggi said.

The committee chief was due to meet Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Thursday to see if the bid could be salvaged ahead of a final vote by Rome’s council next week.

Without Rome in the mix, only a few cities would remain in the drawing: Los Angeles, Paris and Budapest.

The 2020 Games will take place in Tokyo, Japan.

The Rome 2024 Twitter account summed up the committee’s disappointment dramatically, describing “an incredible opportunity lost for Rome and for Italy”, and showing a series of memes for the former bid with the hashtag #ROMASENZAFUTURO, “Rome without a future” in an ominous smokey typeface.

“We want something more for Rome, 70 per cent of citizens said no to the Games”.

Boston is also part of a broader problem facing the Olympic movement: More and more cities are saying “no thank you” to the prospect of hosting a multibillion dollar, two-week sports carnival.

Giovanni Malago, the president of Italy’s Olympic Committee (CONI), said last week the committee would abandon its bid to host the Games in the event Raggi refused to give her backing.

Parliament’s Youth and Sport Committee has asked the government to submit a bid for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Boston and Hamburg have already dropped out of the running for the 2024 Games.

According to Amer, the committee received reports from its five members who accompanied the Egyptian mission to the Olympic Games in Brazil. Revelations of systematic corruption involving Roman politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen in late 2014 prompted doubts about whether the city could handle work associated with the Olympics in a transparent way.

Raggi said it would be financially irresponsible to pursue the bid any further given the city is barely able to get its trash picked up.

However, Raggi announced on Wednesday that it would be “irresponsible” for Rome to continue with their bid.

“We’re honoured that Rome will host such an important sports event”, Raggi said. Lately, getting to host the Olympics has felt more like a booby prize than a financial boon.

Mayor Raggi’s caution is fully justified by the historic track record of contemporary Olympic Games, a horror show of cost-overruns and lingering, crippling debt.

The “Olympic Agenda 2020” reforms were aimed at avoiding a repeat of the bidding for the 2022 Winter Games, which was depleted by the withdrawal of four cities – Stockholm; Oslo; Lviv, Ukraine; and Krakow, Poland – for political or financial reasons. “We just don’t support it”, Raggi said on Wednesday.